Anton L. Caputo: Is The Alamo City Green?

Traffic in San Antonio got you down? Sick of looking at suburban sprawl pop up in a seemingly endless procession of new subdivisions and strip malls? Well, according to the people at SustainLane, things could be a lot worse.

The Web site that specializes in sustainable living recently put out its sustainable growth rankings for the country’s 50 biggest cities. San Antonio ranked a respectable 21, second in Texas to only Austin.

Check it out at sustainlane.com/article/895. You can use the clickable map to compare us to other cities. The details provide a pretty good platform for discussing what the Alamo City is doing right and wrong as it continues to grow. For instance, it gets top honors for affordability of housing and good marks for water quality and even traffic congestion and air quality. It gets mediocre marks for things like land-use planning and public transportation and is judged an abject failure for green building.

The writers at SustainLane were kind enough to refer to the River Walk as a “lush green walkway.” Mark Cuban’s hometown, by the way, ranked three spots behind San Antonio.